Alex Gibbs

by Coltrane

Recently hired offensive line coach Alex Gibbs has left the Seahawks.

I had originally started to write about Alex Gibbs on January 15 — according to the “Properties” of the piece I’ve been messing with for a while. That’s eight months ago. Evidently I think it’s more interesting now that he’s gone.

From Greg Johns, SeattlePi.com:

Of all the offseason hires by Pete Carroll, the biggest and most ballyhooed was the addition of offensive line coach Alex Gibbs to his Seahawks coaching staff.

Gibbs, 69, was heralded as the guru of zone blocking and one of the most-respected assistants in the NFL.

He was the guy who could take late-round draft picks of marginal talent and mold them into a lean, mean fighting machine that would mow down opposing defensive lines with their cut-blocking skills and open up creases to revive Seattle’s ground game.

He was the man excited about the potential of first-round draft pick Russell Okung, the fellow whose familiarity with veteran guard Ben Hamilton made him a perfect fit, the perfectionist who was cussing and yelling and setting a tough tone for Seattle’s rebuilding line at every practice…

Here’s a couple of excerpts from what I’d written:

One of the coaches joining Pete Carroll in Seattle is Joe Gibbs’ kid, Alex Gibbs. Alex’s recent history includes coaching the offensive line in Denver from 1995-2003. In 2004 Gibbs went to Atlanta, staying on as a consultant from 2005-2006. Finally, in 2008-2009 he served as the offensive line coach with Houston. His resume also includes stops in Kansas City, Indianapolis, San Diego, and with the Los Angeles Raiders. His teams are usually among the league leaders in rushing yards…

[Insert Really Cool Chart That Requires A Bunch Of Work That Somehow Never Got Finished Here]

…besides producing 1,000 yard rushers, the teams in Denver were famous for something else — the offensive linemen would consistently take cracks at the knees of the opposing defensive line. Each week the defensive linemen would say: “Yeah, no. I think I’ll take the week off and protect my knees and career.” The Denver running backs would use that opportunity to run wild. Remember when Magic had 42 points in the All-Star game because nobody wanted to get within 20 feet of him? Yeah, that.

Personally I think that strategy is pretty distasteful. I’d guess if the Seahawks win the fans will look the other way. Do the ends justify the means?

The Greg Johns piece goes into some detail as to the whys and wherefores of Alex Gibbs’ departure. It’s a good piece, and well worth reading for Seahawks fans.

I think it fundamentally comes down to just a few things:

1. Gibbs prefers small, agile linemen. Pete Carroll is building a “big” team. It’s a post for another day, but I’ll bet this years Seahawks as a group are on average at least 1/2″ taller than last year, and at least 5 pounds heavier.

2. The Seahawks offensive line is in a shambles, and Gibbs doesn’t want his good name associated with it. (Pure speculation, but entirely reasonable.)

3. Gibbs is too old for this stuff. The man is 69 years old.

I remember seeing a comedian a number of years ago who said: “Ronald Reagan is 77 years old and he has access to ‘The Button.’ — My grandfather is 77 and we don’t let him touch the remote control.”

I guess that’s an old joke now. If Reagan were alive he’d be 99, and he’s been dead for six years. (Sad thing is, I had to go to wikipedia to confirm he’s actually deceased. He basically went into hiding near the end of his life.)

Further Aside: For those of you too young to remember the Cold War — “The Button” would launch America’s nuclear warheads at the Russians. Just so we’re clear. Watch the movie “WarGames” sometime. In real life Reagan was basically the WOPR computer, minus the scary blinking lights. (And no, the computer wasn’t a reanimated hamburger, though that would be scary.)

Back onto topic. I’ll be very interested to see how the offensive line shapes up this year. I’m going to be especially interested to see if the Seahawks employ the cut-blocking tactics described above.

My hope is that the Seahawks elect to knock people on their butts the old-fashioned way, by using the larger athletes to shove the opposition around.

Fun Baseball Trivia

By Blaidd Drwg

There is a fun and occasionally difficult baseball trivia quiz on sporcle right now. It is 50 questions with a 9 minute time limit. I managed to score 35 out of 50, and there were a couple of questions that I realized I did know the answer to after the fact. There were also a couple I had absolutely no idea on and would have never guessed in a million years. So, I you have 10 minutes to kill and want to test your baseball knowledge, I recommend it.

Seahawks To Win 8 Games, More Or Less

by Coltrane

The Vegas over/under for Seahawks wins is 7.5.

The ESPN experts all pick the Seahawks to finish 3rd in the NFC West. This John Clayton quote is typical of the overall opinions:

DIVISION FINISH: 3 Pete Carroll isn’t loaded with talent as he was as the USC head coach, but he has a nice plan to rebuild the Seahawks. As long as Matt Hasselbeck stays healthy, Carroll could squeeze out seven or eight wins.

Hasselbeck won’t be in Seattle the next time the Seahawks are competitive. Charlie Whitehurst seems to have the “correct” size, arm, high release, and mobility to be at least an adequate replacement when the time comes. My concern with Whitehurst (from what little I’ve seen) is that his throws “sail” when he loses his release point. Jeff Kemp had the same issue when he was with Seattle, and that didn’t turn out well.

What makes the Seahawks a .500 team? For reference, Scouts.inc grades NFL players on a 1 to 100 scale. A grade of 90 or above is considered “Elite”; 80-89 is “Outstanding”, and 75-79 is a “Solid Starter.”

The five highest rated Seahawks:

Lofa Tatupu – 79

T.J. Houshmandzadeh – 79

Aaron Curry – 78

Brandon Mebane – 78

Marcus Trufant – 78

And those are the studs.

Bill Simmons ranks the Seahawks QBs 28th out of the 32-team league.

Great Willies of Major League Baseball

By Blaidd Drwg

mays — The Greatest Willie in MLB history, in Willie's (and probably most people's) opinion.

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, not that kind of Willie.

Last night, I had a wonderful time at the Everett Aqua Sox game with Coltrane and Annie S. of this blog fame (hey, 50% of the blog readership in one spot!). During the game (and after a couple of beers), we decided to pick a first name and name as many guys as we could who played baseball. The list we came up with quickly:

Willie Mays
Willie Keeler
Willie Bloomquist
Willie Stargell
Willie McGee
Willie Aikens

Not a bad list (well, except for Bloomquist). Surprisingly, there are 3 HOFers on that list (Mays, Keeler and Stargell); who would have thought that there would be that many guys in the Hall named Willie. Well, I decided to look it up on baseball-reference.com this morning and we missed another 3 (!!) Hall of Famers named Willie: Willie McCovey (how the heck did we miss “Stretch”), Bill Foster (a Negro Leaguer who apparently went by Willie), and Willie Wells (another Negro Leaguer who had the nickname “The Devil”). I have to admit, 6 players in the HOF who went by Willie is more than I would have ever guessed. In case you are wondering, the name with the most HOFers – Joe with 11, and, just for the heck of it – there is only one HOFer who went by the name of Mike – that would be Mike Schmidt.

Some of the other notable Willies that we missed:

Willie Randolph
Willie Horton
Willie Wilson
Willie Montanez
Willie Jones
Guillermo (Don’t Call Me Willie) Hernandez
Willie Davis

We did also come up with Willie Mays Hayes, but he doesn’t count unless you include fictional ballplayers.

Here is the complete list of Baseball Willies for your reading pleasure: The Willie List

Mourning the Passing of a Legend

By Blaidd Dwrg

You probably have never heard of him – Cal McLish. He passed away Thursday at the age of 84. Cal McLish was a pitcher for the Dodgers, Pirates, Cubs, Indians, Reds, White Sox and Phillies who went a very unassuming 92-92 in his career and was pretty much a league average pitcher.

Why call him a legend? A couple of reasons – he was actively involved in his community for many years, eventually earning election into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame for his contributions; he is a legend among autograph collectors – he was always willing to sign his name, answer any questions and talk about baseball; and he holds a records in baseball that may never be broken – he has the longest name in Major League Baseball history.

You may ask, “Drwg, how long could his name possibly be?” Well, the guy, who was known by the nicknames Buster and Bus, was born with the name Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. Yes, that is his given name.

The story goes like this:

His full name was Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. His father chose the name after McLish’s mother told John McLish he could name their son.

“There were eight kids in the family, and I was No. 7, and my dad didn’t get to name one of them before me. So he evidently tried to catch up,” Cal McLish told The Oklahoman in 1999.

I had always wanted to ask him to sign something for me with his full name, just because I thought it would look interesting. Alas, I will not get that chance.

Cla McLish was one of the few remaining connections to the Brooklyn Dodgers and now he has passed but hopefully will not be forgotten.

Wayne’s Bleedin’ Head

by Coltrane

I had forgotten how young Vince Vaughan was once. Here’s the incredibly foul-mouthed, classic scene from the movie Swingers — the guys are playing video hockey and Vince Vaughan “makes Wayne’s head bleed.”

I think a lot of guys love sports video games because of the trash-talking involved.

Top 10 Fictional Home Runs of All Time

By Blaidd Drwg

Jim Caple, who is always good for a laugh or two when he writes, wrote an espn.com piece titled “Page 2’s Top 10 fictional home runs“. It is surprising how few “memorable” home runs have occurred in the movies, considering the love of the dramatic ending in Hollywood (how much more dramatic can a walk off HR in the bottom of the 9th to win a game get). My favorites:

8. Thanks to his secret weapon, Wunderbat, Homer Simpson homers throughout the season to send his team to the nuclear plant softball championships (“The Simpson’s,” Homer at the Bat). Unfortunately Homer gets benched when Mr. Burns hires big league ringers for the big game.

HOMER: You’re Darryl Strawberry!

STRAWBERRY: Yes.

HOMER: You play right field.

STRAWBERRY: Yes.

HOMER: I play right field, too.

STRAWBERRY: So?

HOMER: Well, are you better than me?

STRAWBERRY: Well, I’ve never met you, but … yes.

The “Homer At Bat” episode was a vastly underrated early Simpsons episode, featuring a lineup of baseball all-stars (remember when Steve Sax and Mike Scioscia were all-stars). It also gave us this: Talkin’ Baseball (Simpsons).

My other favorite? This one:

9. The Jeffrey Maier home run (1996 ALCS) off the bat of Derek Jeter. C’mon, you know it wasn’t a real home run.

Tiger Woods Loses a Kidney

by Coltrane

Sliding Billy Hamilton, because you know what Tiger looks like.

…No, not really, though the kidney would probably be less painful. Woods’ wife has filed for divorce, and it’s estimated she’ll get a settlement somewhere in the $50-100 million dollar range. And the kids.

I saw Herm Edwards on tv recently. He was talking about how athletes get themselves into trouble — he might have been talking about Vick, or McNair, or Woods, or someone else altogether. He then spoke about the right way to stay out of trouble. To paraphrase, he said:

“The way to stay out of trouble is to remember the Rule Of “One.” One Woman. One House. One Car.”

I don’t have anything to add to that.

TWIB

By Blaidd Drwg

For those of you old enough to remember (which, considering that I know most of the readers of this blog should be just about all of you), TWIB stands for “This Week In Baseball”, the weekly half hour baseball show hosted by the late, great Mel Allen that used to air right before the Saturday afternoon game of the week. “How about that!”

There were two big baseball stories occurred in the last week that I feel the need to comment on them.

Bobby Thompson – Bobby passed away earlier this week at the age of 86. Everyone remembers him for “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” off Ralph Branca in the 1951 playoff that put the Giants into the World Series. People forget that he was a pretty good ballplayer beyond that, playing 15 seasons and hitting 264 Home Runs. I personally got to meet Bobby Thompson years ago in the mid ‘80’s at a baseball card show. There was no one waiting behind me to get his autograph so I talked to him for about 10 minutes. He was humbled that a kid who wasn’t even born when he retired knew so much about his playing days and we talked about him growing up in Staten Island (and being born in Scotland), his military service and having the opportunity to play for the Giants while they were in NY. I would highly recommend reading Joshua Prager’s book “Echoing Green” – it is a fascinating read about how the Giants were stealing signs in 1951 and the personalities involved in the battle between the Giants and Dodgers. It spends a lot of time talking about Thompson and Branca.

“There’s a long fly ball…THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT…THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT…BOBBY THOMPSON!…” I still get chills thinking about Russ Hodges’ call, made 22 years before I was born.

Roger Clemens – Clemens is going to be indicted for perjury before congress. One, this is going to mean absolutely nothing in the long term and two, why is this a big deal. Does anyone really think that Senate sub-committees aren’t lied to on a regular basis by people under oath? (I am looking at you BP). Besides it is a baseball player lying about steroids. I am sure that has somehow compromised national security.

The Card That Launched One Thousand Ships

by Coltrane

Somehow the card came to be in our house. It materialized one day on the elevated hearth that framed our fireplace. I doubt that we purchased it, as it was in a plastic angled display stand, and plastic angled display stands were beyond our young means.

I don’t remember the card’s origins, but one thing is for certain: Its existence led to a spirited discussion between my brother and I as to whom it belonged to — so spirited in fact that my mother responded to the situation by taking the card away from both of us. We never saw it again. I’m sure that there’s a lesson in there someplace, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what it might be.

II.

When I was in high school I got my first office job. It was functionally a government job. “Motivated” was not one of the words you would associate with many of my coworkers. One of the younger, particularly myopic guys collected baseball cards, studying card magazines while at work. He didn’t collect them for fun though. This was during the late ’80’s boom that saw baseball cards escalate wildly in value. “You should really put some money into baseball cards”, he’d say. “It’s like printing money”, he’d insist. I didn’t see the point — it wasn’t fun, why bother?

Shortly after that conversation the government pulled the funding from our project and we all got laid off, effective in one month. Most of the employees spent that last month looking forlorn and sending out resumes. I went off to college with the money I’d saved working there. The myopic guy wound up with no job and, years later, a pile of valueless cardboard. I’d like to think there was a lesson in there someplace, but I’m not sure on that one either.

III.

I liked Fran Tarkenton when I was a kid. Tarkenton was a little guy who was famous for his improvisational skills — “Fran The Scram.” He eventually broke Johnny Unitas’ record for touchdowns and career passing yards. It was my understanding that at the time some folks didn’t look too kindly upon Fran knocking Johnny off of the top spots in the record books. Unitas was a Quarterback — tall, crew cut, and all business. Fran’s image was that he was out there winging it, and according to Unitas fans that was not the proper way to play quarterback. Even now, Tarkenton still ranks 4th in career touchdowns and 6th in career passing yards, despite the NFL only playing 14 games per year back then.

Who did he play like? Probably the most similar modern quarterback to Tarkenton would be Doug Flutie. Flutie got stuck playing in the CFL for much of his career, picking up a few Grey Cup championships in the process. Jim Zorn would probably be another good comp as well, if he were a better quarterback than he really was. Each of those guys was really mobile, but not so mobile as to detract from a quarterback’s real purpose in life — throwing the ball.

I’d guess that card is now worth about $20, wherever it is.